


Letters

by hermineriddle



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Family, Harley Keener is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Hurt Peter Parker, Mentions of Cancer, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Secret family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:02:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22201537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hermineriddle/pseuds/hermineriddle
Summary: Unopened letters are a mystery they can contain your salvation or your downfall.The only way to find out is to open them.Through opening a mysterious letter from the hospital regarding Peters aunt he finds out that May only got one month to live.He tries to enjoy the last days with his aunt but is prepared for the inevitably to happen.And his only clue where his life would be going from there was a mysterious letter in his aunts stuff.
Relationships: Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Letters

  


  


  


Peter's breath formed icy clouds in the cold December air.

He trembled slightly despite his thick winter coat and the Academic Decathlon Team sweater underneath. He was very surprised that he was able to join the team right in his first year of high school.

But the surprise was positive.

The decathlon team from Paxton High had been quite successful so far and according to the reports of Peters older neighbor who was two years above him, they made it to the nationals last year and lost to a STEM school from New York in the quarter finals.

  


Peter had the hope that with his help the team would make it at least as far.

He would be thrilled to finally see a little more of the USA. His longest journey so far had been a weekend trip to Denver.

Holidays were simply not an option for Peter's family.

Money was a difficult question and probably the reason why he had to walk half an hour to school instead of taking the bus, even in winter, no matter how cold it was.

Not that Peter was not happy with his life, no he was happy with his school and May, who was his aunt but loved him like a son.

  


She did her best to give him the best life possible for them.

  


Working more jobs at once than a human being should be able to do.

Peter had often asked her to give up one or two of her jobs so that she could be more relaxed and spend more time together.

  


  


Especially due to the fact that Peter had few friends, May was the only person he had a deep relationship with, she was literally the only one he had left, it was hard not to see her for days at a time because she was only at home when Peter was at school or asleep.

  


But even when he assured her that he didn't need new shoes every year and that he didn't mind if some of his trousers were a bit over his ankles.

Even if this had often made him the laughing stock of the other students, especially in the last two years.

  


Not that Peter cared much whether they ignored him now or talked about him behind his back, in the end he couldn't care less, especially since he wasn't really bullied.

  


All that mattered to him was that May was doing as well as possible.

  


When he arrived a few minutes later at the brick school building he was relieved to finally be able to escape into the warmth.

Winter was terrible.

  


  


As he was already a bit late, the corridors were already full of students who either chatted loudly with their friends on the way to the classroom or seemed overslept and tried to squeeze through the crowd to their locker.

  


After all, it was Monday. And Peter probably belonged more to the second group.

For first lesson he had chemistry which cheered up his mind a lot.

  


This was one of the subjects which, in contrast to for example English literature, suited him very well.

  


He also sat in this class next to Gwen Stacey, the daughter of Paxton's police chief, who was one of the few students who ever really spoke to him.

  


  


She was just as interested in chemistry as he was and had joined the Academic Decathalon team at the school this year too.

Peter loved talking with her about science without encountering incomprehension.

Peter would even say that he would like to be more friends with her. But he is not sure if she would like to be friends with him.

  


  


Besides the fact that she was quite smart, she was also one of the girls that everyone liked and with whom everyone would like to be friends right away

  


Besides, Peter secretly thought that she already had much cooler friends than him. He decided not to think about it any further and sat down in the second row next to the pretty blonde girl in the chemistry room.

  


  


  


  


The rest of the school day went by relatively quickly. At lunch he sat alone as usual.

  


  


  


  


Even if he saw his neighbor Randy who was a junior in high school, he only waved him, he had his own friends and certainly did not want to hang out with a lonely freshman.

  


  


  


  


But it didn't bother him since he was used to it.

  


  


  


  


That afternoon he was home earlier than he was used to, he had planned to study for math in the library but then decided to leave because Randy's mother had offered to take him home.

  


Peter was just happy not to freeze to death for the second time that day.

When he came home May was not at home yet as expected.

Peter who couldn't study or work on one of his lectures because he had neither a mobile phone nor internet, decided to do some cleaning.

  


He cleaned the living room, washed the dishes from the morning and did the laundry. He did this often, it did not bother him because he knew that he could upport May that way.

  


  


When he was finished he got the mail out of the mailbox.

  


  


Besides some advertising and a postcard from one of May's friends who was on vacation in Peru there was a letter in the post Peter wanted to put it on the kitchen counter with the rest of the stuff when the sender's address caught his eye.

  


  


  


  


,, Ogallala Community Hospital''; It was the name of the nearest hospital, as Paxton did not have one

  


Peter frowned confused, why should May get a letter from a hospital.

  


Was she sick? And why hadn't she told him.

  


  


He was at a loss and he had the feeling that he would regret his next action, but he carefully opened the letter, taking care not to damage it so much that he could close it again without a trace.

  


Peter skimmed over the text and as he slowly understood the meaning of the words that were written there, all the colour disappeared from his face and he had the feeling that he was getting dizzy.

  


''You shouldn't have seen this.'' Peter whirled around in hshock, his aunt had appeared behind him, he had apparently not heard her enter the room.

  


She had spoken in a dewy, almost regretful voice.

Slight anger flared up in Peter.

  


''Why didn't you tell me you had cancer?''

  


She flinched at his harsh words.

  


Peter felt a little bad he shouldn't have yapped at her like that, but it wasn't fair.

  


  


''I'm sorry, sweetheart. I didn't want you to worry, you have enough to deal with.''

  


These words did not help tthe situation and Peter felt tears rising in his eyes.

  


''It says here that you have less than a month left. A damn month. When would I have known at the funeral. You can't hide things like this from me. I don't have anyone else but you.''

  


  


He let the tears he had tried to hold back until now run free.

  


May seemed at a loss for words.

She just put her arms around him and held him while he cried into her shoulder.

And a single tear ran down her face as well.

  


The rest of the evening they sat down on the couch eating pizza and talked, talked and talked.

  


May told him everything, that she had only known about her illness for almost a year.

  


But she had never told him, because she wanted to enjoy her time with him without prejudices or him worrying.

  


She revealed that next week they would go to New York for a week just in time for the Christmas holidays, the city where May was born and where they would spend the most beautiful holiday ever.

  


Then they cried together again and swore to each other to make the best of the remaining time.

May excused him from school for the last three days to pack for New York with him and also, what Peter didn't like so much, to sort things out what would be when the inevitable happened.

  


She made it clear that he would of course get all her things, his school was paid for until his graduation and he had a hereditary account which he could access as soon as he was 18 where May had saved up some money.

  


Peter listened to her and accepted all her wishes, but it seemed surreal, almost unimaginable that he would soon be without May, she had always been there.

  


He didn't want May to know about it but he had cried himself to sleep every night since he had heard about her illness.

He was just scared.

  


  


A few days later it was time to leave Paxton, on Saturday their plane went to New York.

During the flight the two watched May's favourite Sitcom, it hurt Peter to know that he would never be able to watch all twenty seasons again with May.

  


Luckily the flight went without further problems so that they arrived at their hotel in New York in the early evening.

  


After they had checked into their rooms, they walked a little bit through the city and May showed him the house where she had lived when she was a child.

This time she seemed to be close to tears.

They finished the evening by going to a nice restaurant which they normally wouldn't even dare to look at from the outside, so sinfully expensive it was, but Peter persuaded May to do it when she said that this was her favourite restaurant.

The next days flew by, Peter and May spent a lot of time with each other exploring the city and taking countless photos together.

May wanted Peter to have something to show his children from his aunt who was like a mother to him.

This brought them close to a breakdown when they realized that May would never get to know Peters children. Peter already wanted to declare this holiday as the most beautiful and unforgettable and perfect when the last morning came.

  


The two of them had already packed, as they wanted to use the day to the fullest to take the flight home late in the evening and had decided to go to a small cafe near their hotel for brunch.

While they were walking, they talked and laughed. Until Peter walked a few steps ahead and suddenly heard a dull noise behind him. At first Peter thought that it was the bag that had slipped off Mays shoulder.

But when he turned around, the blood froze in his veins.

  


His aunt, who had laughed happily until a moment ago, was now lying on the snow-covered sidewalk with an expressionless face.

Peter was frozen solid and could not move.

  


He felt like he was in a dream from which he could not escape. He tried to call for help, but not a word left his lips.

Luckily, some passers-by had noticed her and one of them was to check her pulse.

  


''She's still alive, someone call an ambulance,"; said the middle-aged man and his wife next to him took out her cell phone and dialled 911.

  


  


  


  


The rest Peter did not really notice or remember. He was only aware that he was asked for his name, that he stuttered out insecurely and that he was suddenly sitting in a hospital on a chair in the hallway outside the emergency room waiting for someone to tell him what had happened.

  


Next to him there was only an older man with a grumpy look on his face, sitting a few seats to his right next to the vending machine in the corridor.

When Peter looked closer at the man, he immediately saw real concern behind his bad mood as he watched the door of the second emergency room.

The man seemed to notice that Peter was watching him and looked at him. '' What are you looking at, kid?''

Peter winced slightly, stammered a quiet sorry and looked down at the floor.

As he broke eye contact, he could not see the softening face of the man.

  


Peter kept waiting, forcing himself to think of everything but not what happened to his aunt.

But every time the door of the emergency room opened, he looked up quickly and hopped to see his aunt walking out of the room in perfect health or at least a doctor who could give him more detailed information.

  


''Would you like something, kid?'' Peter looked up.

  


The man had spoken to him and stood in front of the vending machine, waiting as his thin coffee flowed into a paper cup.

Peter shook his head unsteadily.

''I don't have money. . . '',he murmured.

  


  


Pity flitted across the face of the elderly man.

''It's okay, I've got enough. Hot chocolate?''; The boy nodded, mainly because he had no strength to argue.

  


''Thank you very much.'', he said softly as the man handed him the hot drink.

The man made a dismissive gesture.

To Peter's surprise, he settled right next to Peter, two seats away from him.

  


''What is your name, kid?'' he asked in a surprisingly friendly tone.

  


''P-Peter,"; he stuttered. The man nodded. ''Happy Hogan.''; the man intruduced himself.

  


In another situation Peter would have found it funny that this grumpy man was called Happy.

  


But now he didn't even think about it in this moment.

Peter nodded politely. ''Who are you waiting for? ''

The boy didn’t like to talk about it, but he had learned from May to always be polite to strangers.

''For my aunt.'' Mr. Hogan nodded, but did not seem to want to ask further into the subject.

  


''I am waiting for my boss.'', a narrow smile almost seemed to caress his lips.

  


Peter looked at him in wonder. ''On your boss?''

  


''Yup, his wife went home half an hour ago and left me to wait for Tony to come out of surgery.''

  


Peter's eyes widened.

''Operation?''; Happy Hogan nodded.

''Yeah, got a shield in the chest.''

  


Peter noticed that the topic was a bit uncomfortable for the older one, so he just nodded concerned.

''Why-''; he wanted to start his question when the door of one of the operating rooms opened and a hospital bed was rolled out, on which a man was lying.

  


Peter couldn't see his face.

  


''So I have to go. Maybe I'll see you around.'', the man said goodbye and pulled a five dollar bill out of his pocket and shoved it into Peter's hand.

  


''Get yourself another chocolate or something to eat.'' Peter wanted to refuse the money or at least say thank you when the man had already hurried away.

Half an hour later a doctor came and told him that his aunt had survived and was now asleep. But he didn’t know how the seizure would affect the disease.

  


Peter was reassured that his aunt was alive and let the doctor take him to her hospital room.

Fortunately, his aunt recovered quickly.

Only a few days later she was at least externally very healthy.

  


  


Since the incident, Peter was even more worried about his aunt and urged her as soon as they returned home to quit most of her jobs.

  


So that she could rest, because he had learned from the doctors in the New York hospital that additional stress, worsend the illness.

She agreed without much objection, which worried Peter even more, his aunt as he knew her would at least have tried to persuade him.

  


It was probably said that she herself also noticed that she was getting weaker.

Peter also quit all of his extracurricular activities, including Academic Decathalon, to spend as much time as possible with May.

  


But where it was nice to spend more time with her in the beginning it became more and more difficult not to think that these times could be over soon.

  


Somehow, someone at school seemed to have overheard about Peter's sick aunt and soon all the students of the small high school seemed to know.

Fortunately, nobody had the stupid idea to tease him about it, but rather he received expressions of pity from all sides.

Somehow it was nice for him not to be ignored by everyone, but he had wanted this attention in a different way.

Several weeks passed and May began not to feel worse, but rather better.

She looked healthier again, ate more and laughed more.

  


Peter never dared to express this hope, but he had the feeling that his aunt could get better again. Maybe the doctors were wrong.

The incident in New York could have been the low point of her illness and her body began to fight back.

  


Besides, the one month they had been promised had been long gone, and spring was approaching. These thoughts gave him hope, but that hope was to be destroyed on the last day of April.

  


Peter was sitting in math class when the call came in, one of his favourite lessons, he and Gwen with whom he got along better and better and who was also his date for the upcoming school dance, Peter was never so nervous, laughing at something pointless that Peter couldn't remember afterwards.

  


When the secretary entered the room and asked Peter to leave the classroom.

Peter also had hardly any memories of the conversation that followed.

  


She told him that she got a call from May's hospital and she had a seizure this morning.

May had even managed to call the ambulance but when it arrived there was nothing they could do for her.

At this moment all her words faded into the background and he could no longer think or feel.

It was as if these words had suddenly breathed out his soul.

He was in such a state of shock that the secretary took him to the hospital room to calm him down.

While he still did not manage to show any reaction from the outside, his head began to think again.

And absurdly, the first thing he had to think about was that it wasn't like a movie.

In every dramatic feature film, the main character always has a few minutes of farewell with their loved one before they leave this world forever.

Peter didn't want or couldn't understand that May had left just like that, she was still fine in the morning.

  


Then half an hour later the tears set in. It wasn't a lot of crying.

Rather it was thin little rivers of tears running down Peter's cheeks.

  


He didn't bother to whip them away.

May was gone.

Nothing would ever make sense to him again.

The only person he ever had as a family and who had loved him like no one else didn't deserve to die, especially not like this.

The next few weeks went by blurred.

Peter did not know what to do with himself and his feelings.

Sometimes he was incredibly sad, then again angry even if he didn't know who exactly he was angry at and sometimes he just didn't feel anything. During this time he continued to live in May and his apartment.

His neighbours sometimes looked after him but most people around him kept their distance to give him time to process.

  


Peter could not estimate whether this helped him. He hadn't touched May's stuff yet, he hadn't gotten over it.

At least he didn't until a certain day three weeks after May's death.

As his neighbour predicted it a few days before, the CPS came by and he was forced to pack everything he wanted to take with him into a small travel bag.

  


How to pack 15 years in half an hour?

  


Of course, he had already put the most important things together for the case some time before.

  


But this had been as half-hearted as everything he had done recently.

  


His life was upside down.

  


After he had packed everything else, he struggled to go through May's things again.

Most of them were just simple everyday objects but for Peter they meant much more.

  


There was only one strange thing Peter found.

And his eyes widened.

It was a letter. It was inscribed with Peter's name, but underneath in May's neat handwriting: In case of an emergency

  


This sentence alone made tears appear in his eyes again.

Just as he was about to open the letter, the social worker who would take him away called from the living room.

‘’ Peter are you ready?''

  


He would open the letter later he decided and quickly put it in a side pocket of his travel bag.

  


The drive to the orphanage where Peter would stay for the time being.

  


Until the CPS would fail to find remaining relatives and he would then either stay in the orphanage or be placed in a foster family. Both were not the best possibilities but what mattered at all.

  


When they reached the orphanage an hour later, the man from the CPS handed Peter over to a nice old lady who led him straight through the building, which somehow reminded him of a big villa from the outside.

  


Peter was surprised, contrary to his expectations the orphanage was modern and cleanly furnished.

The woman even took him past a computer room and a home theatre.

It could have been worse.

In the corridors he saw some other children, but they paid little attention to Peter. After the little tour was finished the lady whose name was Mrs. Dublin led him to his room which he seemed to share with three other boys who were not there.

  


There wasn't much room, but a bed and a cupboard would have to do.

When Mrs. Dublin left him alone, he quickly set about putting his things in the cupboard before dinner.

In the process, May's letter fell into his hands again. But he decided to open it later. He had the feeling that he had to deal with what was in the letter in peace and quiet. So first he went down to the dining room. This one seemed to be made for about 40 children and was already felt.

It reminded him a bit of the school canteen.

Peter uncertainly took a tray and went to the counter and helped himself.

There was pasta with vegetable sauce and cheese.

As he now stood there with the filled tablet he faced a known problem.

  


He had no idea where to sit. He knew no one here.

And there was no empty table where he could sit alone. Forced to make a quick decision, he took a seat at the end of a table that was only occupied by three other children who were so deeply involved in a conversation that they didn't even notice that Peter had sat down at their table.

  


And when they noticed it, they didn't seem to care.

One boy asked him briefly if he was the "new guy"

To which Peter only nodded. But he was grateful for the peace and quietness.

Even though May's death was surprisingly not too present in his thoughts like the last weeks, he still did not feel like social contact or talking to other people.

Apparently, that was his way of mourning.

After he finished his noodles, he put away his dishes and went back to his room.

Meanwhile he was quite curious what was in May's letter.

  


So, when he was upstairs, he took a seat on his bed, took the letter and began to open it.

  


  


  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed that first chapter.  
> Feel free to leave a comment or some kudos.
> 
> I don't have much knowledge about the different types of cancer and I can imagine that this is a sensitive subject for some people. So if I portrayed something really wrong feel free to tell me.
> 
> Have a nice day :)


End file.
